To Christine belongs an honour beyond that of having been a patriot and a champion of her sex--the honour of having revealed Dante to France.[32] Scattered up and down her writings are many allusions to the _Divina Commedia_, showing how real a place it must have filled in her soul’s life. She especially recommends it for profitable study in the place of the “hateful” _Romance of the Rose_, concerning which she gave the warning to her son:--
Se bien veulx et chastement vivre, De la Rose ne lis le livre.
[32] A. Farinelli, _Dante e la Francia_, vol. i. p. 192, 1908.
Like Dante, sad and lonely--“souvent seulete et pensive, regretant le temps passé”--like him she also realised the thirst for knowledge as an ever-present want of the soul, and that its ultimate perfection is only to be attained by following after virtue and knowledge. Although, as regards profundity, her conception of the world and of life cannot be compared with that of her great prototype, or even with that of such an one as St. Hildegarde, still she had read with unflagging diligence a vast number of profane and ecclesiastical writers, and seems to have been well versed in the varied knowledge of her time, especially history. But whilst it is possible to criticise her learning, tempered as this was by her character and the needs of her day, it is at the same time possible to acknowledge that in spite of flaws and an often over-elaborated setting, moral truth sparkles gemlike throughout her writings. One of her biographers speaks of her thus: “Her morale is so pure and so universally human that not only does it remain true to-day, but it will retain imperishable value as long as ever human society is based on a pure and healthy moral foundation.”